Christmas Letter 2008

What an amazing year of transition we experienced! First, we eliminated or stored most of our possessions, finished beautifying our already wonderful home better than new, put it on the market & sold in 3 days! In a very down market! Sound easy? It was an immense project with lots of help. MaryAnne’s Brother Gerard & family even flew in from Boise to help for a week. We are forever grateful to them & also friends Linda & Scott for their special gifts of support. They helped us reach our dream. Oh, thanks to the modern business world, the house sale & closing were completed all the while we were already on the road. Pretty swift. (And it sold to the perfect family for the house.)

We have traveled & visited & seen amazing things in the last 6 months. We have visited some of South Dakota, Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico & now Arizona. We sometimes travel every day 50 – 150 miles, or stay for a few weeks. Our longer stays have been Boise ID, back in the Boulder area, Albuquerque & now Phoenix. Places we visited include Yellowstone, Rushmore, Crazy Horse Monument, Devil’s Tower, Bandelier, Petroglyph, Salinas Missions, Timpanogos, Dinosaur, Saguaro, Casa Grande, Craters of the Moon, Rocky Mtn Park & Great Sand Dunes. Those are just the National type places. Then there are many many State & Local sights. One that stands out for us is Karchner Caverns in AZ; a fabulous living cave system. Along the way we have included visits with friends in many places. So if we haven’t knocked on your door, watch out, we may soon! J

We arrived in the Phoenix area before Thanksgiving & leaving early in January. Enjoying the warm temps & no shoveling snow!! Seeing sights, catching up with friends that we can & taking care of the usual necessaries like dental & eye doctor appointments. Next stop? South & West we go (or so)!

We still don’t have a routine handle on our balzerfreespirit.net web site, but finally have the time to work on it. We should be uploaded with lots & lots of pictures very soon. Ray is running tests & working with our web guru to get it right this time. Please check it soon. Oh, the pix below was on July 5th at Rushmore; decked out in our RV convention gear. We are very happy in the RV lifestyle; love living & traveling in our Alfa Leisure See Ya. We are home any place we park. The views out our windows have been fabulous. We smile a lot. Life is good. Well, take care everyone & lots of love all around. The best of the season and Happy New Year!! –Ray & MaryAnne